[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]


200 MALEKULA
his gift by a present of equal value. If he makes you any consider-
able gift with the assurance that it is for nothing, a pure gift from
his heart, and you accept it as such, making no return service or
gilt, it is not long before you will begin to overhear, on all con-
venient occasions, uncornplimentary references to the fact that you
were given something and broad hints that you owe at least an
equal return gift."
To make no return gift for a present or act of service is to
fail sig-nally in one’s social obligations ; to make a return equal
in value to the initial gift is sufficient to avoid disgrace; but
if a man desires to be well spoken of he must give as repayment
something of greater value than that which he received in the
ï¬Årst place. This has already been illustrated by the rules
regulating the borrowing and repaying of pigs ; further examples
will appear in the accounts of the numerous ceremonies which
involve gift exchange.
Yet for all that the Malekulan is, as has been said, grasping
and bourgeois in his attitude towards wealth, generosity and
consideration for 0ne‘s debtors are held up as virtues. It is
true that the generosity which is preached and practised bring
a reward greater and more tangible than mere self-approbation.
To be stingy is to sink in public esteem ; to be open-handed is
to acquire fame, honour, and influence. Men of high rank are
able to get many men to work for them if they are Willing to be
lavish with their possessions, and in this way they will acquire
yet more wealth, but if they are niggardly in their rewards the
work will be scamped. For the sake of the honour of the village,
too, guests are always worthily entertained. A stranger is
taken to the men’s club-house where he is always given of the
best, asked to eat ï¬Årst, and in every way treated as though he
were a man of importance, so that on leaving and passing through
other villages he may speak well of his hosts and their fame be
thereby upheld. The following tale, recorded from Seniang, is
interesting as preaching the reward of honesty and the punishment
of envy and malice.
A LEGEND or THE SUN
A man of Benaur village once borrowed a curved pig’s tusk
from a friend in order that he might go to Tomman Island to